I Tried Pinterest’s Most Popular Shower Cap Hacks So You Don’t Have To

There are crafty, brilliant life hacks, and then there are just straight-up silly ones. I’m on a mission to investigate which ones are worth the hype, so you can stop wasting your precious time on nonsense — beginning with shower caps.

One quick Pinterest search will bring up umpteen unexpected shower cap hacks, ranging from bizarre to straight-up ridiculous. What is a shower cap hack, you ask? Basically, it’s an inventive way of using a shower cap that goes beyond protecting your hair from water. Some might wonder why they didn’t think of these things before and possibly even adopt them into their own lives, but if you’re like me, you’ll probably just roll your eyes.

Some of the more popular, inventive ways of using shower caps include:

Covering your bike seat, camera, or other belongings in the rain

Covering the remote control in a hotel room (why?)

As an emergency ice pack

As a travel dog bowl

Covering your shoes while packing

Creating your own hot rollers with foam/Velcro curlers

Covering your leftovers (I actually already do this sometimes!)

Protecting your shoes from mud

Keeping food fresh outdoors

Stopping dust from settling on clothes

Covering horse hooves

As a portable vase

Personally, I don’t see why or how any of these things would ever be necessary, but lifestyle and DIY bloggers are convinced they will make your life easier. So maybe I’ve been missing out on some genuinely life-changing uses for shower caps. Maybe it’s time to open my mind a little and see what these elasticized head covers can do. Surely these things have other uses besides keeping your hair dry, right?

I’m game to try anything once. So on a mission to uncover the truth, I chose five shower cap hacks from this list to try for myself. Here’s how it all went down.

The Caps

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I headed over to Walmart in search of some shower caps, as I don’t typically have any lying around. For some reason, after walking up and down every aisle, those clear, disposable ones were nowhere to be found. Instead, I found this pack of three colorful caps by Goody. I paid about $5 for the pack.

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Here’s what they look like on, in case you were wondering. This is Sophie. She hates shower caps.

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She sniffed them up and down before deciding she didn’t want to be involved. Little does she know, she is a prime part of this experiment.

Experiment 1: Shoe Covers

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Nearly every Pinterest post of shower cap hacks includes using them as shoe covers. You’re simply supposed to slide them over your shoes before heading out into the mud or before painting to protect them.

While the idea sounds great, it has many flaws. First of all, I felt utterly ridiculous running around outside with shower caps on my feet. Second of all, they kept slipping off after a few steps. Maybe my feet were too small, or maybe I was using the wrong style of shower cap. Either way, I ended up with mud inside the caps, and my shoes still got dirty. Womp womp.

Experiment 2: Travel Dog Bowl

Sophie was terrified of this so-called “travel bowl” and refused to drink out of it. Probably because it smelled like plastic and I was shoving a foreign object in her face. Either way, it wasn’t happening. Instead, I grabbed some fries and threw them in there. She ate them immediately. I could’ve just handed them to her.

Experiment 3: DIY Hot Rollers

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One Crazy House boasts the use of a shower cap as a way to invent your own hot rollers (if you, for some reason, don’t have access to a curling iron or regular hot rollers). Basically, you’re supposed to put your hair in foam or Velcro rollers, poke some holes into a shower cap, and slip it over your perfectly rolled hair.

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Next, you’re supposed to slip the nozzle of a blow-dryer up into the shower cap and use a low heat setting, followed by a cool setting to mimic the effect of a hood dryer. Then remove the cap and take the rollers down.

Everything worked great for me until I started blow-drying. My hands were burning as I tried to hold up the shower cap (so it wouldn’t melt) while blow-drying the hair inside of it. It also took way longer than simply using a curling iron. So take that as you will.

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Did it curl my hair? Yes. Did I like the way it curled my hair? Eh. Would I do this again? Probably not.

Experiment 4: Emergency Ice Pack

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At last! A shower cap hack that actually makes sense and gets the job done!

This one is hella basic, but something I probably wouldn’t have thought of myself. All you do is fill up the shower cap with ice cubes, tie it up with whatever your heart desires (I used a twist tie) and voila! An ice pack. Use it for wounds or just to cool off on a hot day. It works like a charm and keeps the ice chilled for quite awhile.

Experiment 5: Portable Outdoor Cooler

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Many lifestyle blogs, in some way, shape, or form, talk up the use of a shower cap as a means of keeping food or drinks cool outdoors. I don’t typically eat outdoors unless I’m at a party where everyone else is doing it because, duh, bugs! So rather than use a shower cap to keep food cool, I tested this hack as a portable outdoor cooler. You can easily fit a six-pack inside with some ice.

It definitely kept my beer cold in the 87-degree weather, but a regular cooler probably would have done a better job. It is what it is.

Final Thoughts

Shower caps are not some magical creation sent from heaven to solve our everyday needs and make our lives easier. They’re probably just meant for your head. However, if you are somehow stranded in the middle of nowhere and all you have in your back pocket is a shower cap, you might find that it comes in handy.